So This Happens Now At My House

I was never much of a coffee drinker.  The ex-husband had one of those 12-cup models that he could program to start at a specific time every morning, which was great because the coffee was always ready for him.  I was more of a tea drinker - if I had the urge for coffee, I'd go to Starbucks or Dutch Bros or whatever was handy.  But that didn't happen very often!  Certainly not often enough to warrant replacing the coffee pot when we split up.  However, one of the (very thoughtful) attorneys at my office brought me a bag of Snake River Roasting espresso beans from a recent trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming.  Which meant that I needed to replace the coffee pot (and get a bean grinder).

I don't think I'll ever need to brew 12 cups of coffee at a time.  So I decided to look at the single-serve models, and I found this one!  It's by Hamilton Beach (available at Walmart, or through Amazon by clicking here).  It does 2 sizes - 8 oz or 14 oz, and even has a flip stand so smaller mugs are closer to the dispenser.  And there's no need for expensive specialty cups - the scoop fits right in the filter basket and acts as a double filter.  So now I can grind and brew my own coffee in my own house!  Not every day, because I can't make myself get up early enough to drink a cup of coffee before I leave for work.  And even though this baby will work to fill travel mugs, I never drink out of them.  So for me, it's a weekend and day off treat!

As long as I'm talking about things I like, let's update some things on and off the needles!

Off the needles first: I was promoted at work!  I'm now the legal assistant to the patent prosecution group at our law firm.  I've been working on their transition since they started, and it's truly a fantastic team to work with.  So happy.  This year-long transition has meant a lot of learning of new skills, which means a lot less mental energy for blogging.  I'm trying to schedule a few posts here and there to give you new things to read!  (But it apparently also means thoughtful gifts like those coffee beans....)

On the needles:  I've been busy!  I made each of my girls a coordinating winter accessory set (hat, scarf and fingerless-mitts-with-hoods - there will be tutorials coming on the hats and mitts - pictured above is the scarf I made for K - with an "angel wing" cable pattern).  The only problem was I had to remake H's hat, because I made it too small!  I made a really cute pair of socks (Vanilla Latte - you can search it on Ravelry - very easy top-down socks, and I loooooved the heel).  I have another pair in the works that I need to frog - I bound off and fastened off the cuff (toe-up socks) without trying them on, and I can't stretch the cuff enough to get it over my heel!  I think everything else about the sock is right; the cuff was not an intuitive rib pattern, so by the time I decided I was done I didn't feel like messing with the super-stretchy-bind-off.  I'm hoping that was the mistake - I would be happy to make them a little bit shorter and redo the bind-off if that will fix the issue!  I also have a sweater I've cast on and frogged.  And I have Christmas presents in my head.  I'll do another post with photo updates of some of these pieces.  One thing I've started doing is posting progress pics on Instagram as I think of it: you can totally follow me there to see them "live."  (If you're on Instagram, you can follow me by searching for drea_dear_414.)

I'll be back with more pics later, I have to pull them from "the cloud" and get them ready to post...and be witty...maybe after I have some more coffee!

Required Disclaimer: while this post does contain affiliate links, it is not a sponsored post.  If you purchase anything through a link in this post I may receive remuneration from the website.  Hamilton Beach is not paying me to promote their products, I'm just really impressed with the value and the performance of these particular items.  And if you know someone looking for a single-serve coffee maker but you just don't want to get that "other name brand", now you have an option!

When Silence is a Good Thing

You know that saying, "Silence is golden.  Unless you have a toddler.  Then it's very, very bad."  Or something like that.  Well, I'm definitely not a toddler, so let's say that a long absence from this blog means things are going pretty well!

I have mentally started 10 or 12 posts in the last several months, but never made it to a keyboard to get them online.  I think somewhere I have pictures of baby gift #2 (baby boy was born before Thanksgiving, and I got to hold him when he was 2 days old, and he's sweet, and his mommy loved his gifts and his daddy loved the meals I put in their freezer).  If you follow me on Instagram, you've seen my finished Legion of Boom socks (which I proudly wore to watch my Seahawks decimate the Denver Broncos!!) as well as another pair of socks I've started.  I also made myself a couple of shrugs recently.  I have no pictures of those, I really should try to get pictures of me wearing them for you.

Currently, I have another secret project going.  I've been doing a lot of knitting, and zero cross stitching.  I broke my sewing machine a few months ago while trying to hem a pair of jeans - okay, so the whole machine is probably not broken, but it's more than just the needle that's broken.  Yes, I sewed over a pin.  Yes, I continued to use the broken needle, because denim.  There's no way I'm hand-hemming denim!  But it caused more damage than just the broken needle.  I'm sure I would make a repair person very happy by bringing it for a look!  But for now it sits on the table, because I don't have time to deal with it!

Beyond my hooks and needles, church is great, work is great, the kids are great, the dog is great.  My yard is not great.  We've been in this house for almost 5 years, and I still don't have it the way I want it.  I think it's time for me to declare "I'm just not a gardener", plant flowers in containers and do my best to keep grass alive.

On a personal note, next month marks the end of the series of "one year ago today" moments I've been living through.  I think passing the one year marker on several key moments in my divorce has been a good thing.  But I'm glad they're coming to an end.  I don't want to live the rest of my life marking the passage of time based on something painful.

I'm not going to end this post by making promises to be a better blogger.  If you've stayed with me through the last 6 and a half years, you know I have long silences with bright moments in between.  I'm glad that some of you are inspired by what I write, and what I stitch.  I'm grateful for your comments and your shares over the years.  I take it as a good sign that I've had the urge to write more recently.  Schedule willing, I'll be back again...sometime......

My Week In Stitches and A Mini Rant

I'm way late posting this week's update.  Saturday was a weird day, that's all I can say.  No, really, it's been a weird week.  But it meant a large block of stitching time on Wednesday, and no blogging mojo this weekend.

My kids' school called me during lunch on Tuesday to say my younger one had a fever.  I was able to go pick her up, and a fever in the middle of the day means she won't be clear to go back the next day (she has to be fever-free for 24 hours) so that meant I stayed home with her on Wednesday and worked on Great Is Thy Faithfulness:

(which just happens to be my Theme-a-licious project for September - the theme is Samplers.  And this has words.  From a hymn.  And will have Quaker-ish motifs in the half-circle border.  And in the small sampler section of MBTD's website.  There - all of that = sampler.)  This is turning out to be a very quick stitch, which makes me happy.  I need a quick stitch!

And look at all of this obvious progress on Fairy Sisters - it was the Facebook SAL weekend again, so I devoted some chunks of time to stitching the sky.

I also made some significant progress on the baby gift for T & S on Sunday afternoon.  As in, I'm really happy with how it's turning out and I wish I could show you a picture....

And now for my mini rant.  I enjoy streamlining things, which includes using my Android phone to take picturess of my projects and having those pictures automatically backup to my Google account.  Then I can go in when I'm writing a blog post and edit the photos online, including adding text, before publishing them.  The native photo editor on my phone won't allow me to add text, either.  (Which is strange because my old one would.....)  Well, Google made some changes to their online photo editor, and it looks like the option to add text is gone!  Now I have to either use a "real" camera and load pictures on my computer that way, or I have to open my Picasa photo editor, download/sync the online albums, make the edits, and re-sync them so I can add photos to my post.  I can still do it, but it's extra steps.  And I hate extra steps.  And the text I added looks tiny.  I really wish they would change it back.  I understand that it's free and open-source, but it seems the changes they've made only serve to make photos look more "vintage."  I don't want my photos to look more vintage.  If I want photos I take with my phone to look vintage, I'll put them on Instagram.  (By the way, you can follow me on Instagram if you want - sometimes I share sneak peaks of projects that I don't put on the blog.)